“It feels great,” the indefatigable coach said after Denver’s 26-16 thumping of New England on Sunday sent the Broncos to their first Super Bowl in 15 years.

“It’s felt great for about eight weeks,” Fox said. “Not so much before that.”

Seventy-nine days before Peyton Manning punched the Broncos’ ticket to the Super Bowl with an emphatic win over nemesis Tom Brady in the 15th matchup between the quarterback greats — Fox lay on a golf course near his offseason home in North Carolina and feared he was dying.

“God, you get me out of this and I’ll get it fixed now,” he remembered praying.

Fox had been born with a defect in his aortic valve, which regulates blood flow from the heart into the aorta, the major blood vessel that brings blood into the body. He’d known he needed to get it fixed ever since it was discovered in a routine physical in 1997 while he was working for the New York Giants.

It progressively got worse and he realized last summer he’d have to have it fixed soon, and he hoped to have the operation after this year’s Super Bowl.

Those plans changed that day on the links, and 48 hours later, he was in the operating room.

“Just standing here feels pretty good because I almost wasn’t,” Fox said.

He was all smiles after outfoxing Patriots coach Bill Belichick, whom Manning just last week had called “the greatest NFL coach of all time.”

“He’s a humble guy who knows how to connect with his players,” team president Joe Ellis said. “I think that’s one of his greatest strengths. And they all came prepared today. They all followed their instruction, did their job and it was because of his direction this week.

“He did a great job with the team all season long, but especially this week. Hopefully he’ll lead us to victory in New York.”

Wes Welker suspects he will.

“He’s our leader,” Welker said. “Having him back with his fire, passion and encouragement, it’s huge. He’s a big lift for our football team and we all look up to him.”

While the other head coaches in the NFL’s final four — Belichick, Jim Harbaugh and Pete Carroll — received plenty of pub for the great work they did in getting their teams this far, the national narrative when it came to the Broncos always seemed to be that this was all Manning’s doing.